Heroes with dog collars

In the shadow of death: the Rev Mark Speeks and Rev David Reindorp, two army padres, in France last year where they officiated at the burial of Private Christopher Elphick and Lieutenant John Pritchard, two soldiers of the Great War

Share via

In the shadow of death: the Rev Mark Speeks and Rev David Reindorp, two army padres, in France last year where they officiated at the burial of Private Christopher Elphick and Lieutenant John Pritchard, two soldiers of the Great WarTimes Newspapers Ltd

Last updated at 8:14PM, August 1 2014

The image of the army padre was born in the carnage of the trenches, writes Michael Binyon

Rarely has God been brought so close to the battlefront. More than 4,000 clergy were recruited as military chaplains in the First World War, and for four years they tramped through the mud, sheltered in the trenches, tended to the wounded and ministered to the dying.

Never before had the church been so involved in boosting the morale of fighting men, nor its chaplains so exposed to the extremes of agony and death. The image of the “padre” was born in the First World War — and a century later it is still fundamental to Britain’s fighting forcesaround the world.